Finding you

Chapter 8: Family

Hiccup's POV

"Where are you taking me Zeph?" I asked my daughter as she dragged me with her through the tunnels connecting to the large cave we had been in earlier.

"Somewhere. I ... I think I found something you will like. A lot." Zephyr shot me a smile as she kept on dragging me after her by my wrist, which was beginning to ache ever so slightly. I glanced over my shoulder and laid eyes upon the two dragons behind us who were busy playing with each other as they followed the two of us.

I was about to set my foot down and stop us when Zephyr finally came to a halt, which almost lead to our unfocused dragons crashing into our backs. For a second, I couldn't fathom what there was that she wanted to show me as my gaze switched between looking at her and scanning the room.

"Zeph, what are you—" I was cut off by the sight of something I had thought I had lost forever. My gaze had wandered from my daughter —whose eyes were gleaming with hope— to an eerily familiar woman, who silently watched me from where she stood on the other side of the room, ocean blue eyes glossed over as they buried their gaze in me.

I had to catch my breath as I felt my jaw drop. She looked almost exactly the way she had fifteen years prior. A thick, blonde braid fell down her back and a small beam of light that shone in through the entrance of the illuminated her entire face, allowing me to take in all of its details. All of it's beautiful details.

She dropped the basket she was holding to the floor, allowing its contents to spill out over the ground. Fortunately for us, there were dragons in our presence who quickly took up the challenging duty of cleaning up the spilled fish.

My heart constricted painfully in my chest at the sight of the woman I considered the love of my life. Gods, I had so many questions. Where had she been for the past fifteen years? Why didn't she come back? Was she just a figment of my imagination?

I took a step closer to her, my body begging me to sprint over to her and wrap her in an embrace, but I resisted with all of my might. What if it wasn't really her? What if it was her but she had somehow ... changed? I took another step closer to her and I could see her entire body tense as her gaze remained on me.

"Listen, Hiccup, I know what you're going to say ..." she began, her voice quivering as she took a cautious step backwards. "How could I do this to you? To our daughter? How could I stay away from you for all of these years?"

My own breath got stuck in my throat as she began presenting many of the questions that had been thundering about my mind these past minutes back to me, but still, I kept on going.

Astrid cleared her throat as she took another step back, those mesmerizing eyes still set on me. "I had no other choice, Hiccup! I stayed away to protect you, to protect our daughter!"

Her words sank in, deeply, to the very depths of my heart where I had hidden all the pain I had gone through from losing her for so many years. I was just a few feet away from her now and she looked increasingly nervous for me to come closer. For me to simply ... check if she was real, if she still was the woman I had loved all those years ago.

"Hiccup, please, say something! Scream, shout, whatever! Stop acting like you haven't been hurting even half as much as I have Hiccup because I know you and I know how much you must've been hurting because of the pain I put you in! Hiccup ... please." Her voice dropped to a whisper as she was so close I could almost feel her breath on my lips. I reached out my hand and gently stroked it across her cheek. Her beautiful, soft, warm cheek. Gods, how my entire being ached to just crumble right then and there and beg her to never leave me again.

But instead of crumbling, only a few words managed to escape me: "It's you, it's really you."

Astrid blinked as her mouth slowly began opening and closing, as if she wanted to say something but simply couldn't get the words out. My chest felt like it was going to rip open so that my heart could leap over to hers and melt into it. My eyes began to burn. "Gods, you have no idea how much I've missed you."

Without any other warning, I gently leaned in, letting our lips softly brush against each other before both mine and Astrid's confidence grew, allowing our lips to meet in a heated kiss as I wrapped my arms around her waist, pulling her even closer as our kiss deepened and our hunger for one another filled the both of us.

After a while, we both pulled away, breathless. A grin played at the corners of Astrid's mouth as that familiar spark lit up her eyes. I couldn't help but beam at her, the love of my life, who I had finally gotten back after fifteen long years.

"I missed you too, Hiccup Haddock," Astrid breathed as she pressed a quick kiss to my lips before she rested her head on my chest. "So much."

I braided my fingers into her hair, her soft and silky hair as I reassured myself that this was in fact not another dream, but reality. A whisper escaped me as a lone tear rolled down my cheek. "I love you."

But before Astrid even had the chance to say it back, the sound of someone clearing their throat echoed through the cave. "Not to disturb your love fest or anything, but I just wanted to remind the both of you that the dragons and I are still here."

I let out a chuckle as we turned to face our daughter. "Thank you, Zephyr, for reuniting us."

"No, dad," Zephyr placed a hand on her chest as a smirk pulled at the corners of her lips. "Thank you, for not leaving me alone when I specifically asked you to."

Astrid let out a snort. "There's no doubt that she's your daughter, Hiccup."

I wrapped my arm around Astrid's shoulders and gazed lovingly down at her. "Come back to Berk with us."

"What?" Astrid breathed and suddenly, the moment we had shared suddenly passed as Astrid slithered out of my grip and quickly began backing away.

"Come back to Berk, mom, so that we can finally be a family again!" Zephyr beamed with enthusiasm as she took a step closer to Astrid.

Astrid shook her head violently as she kept on backing up until she met the wall. "Listen, I want to ... but I can't."

"What?" Zephyr exclaimed. "Why not?"

I made my way over to our daughter and stood behind her, my eyes never leaving Astrid's.

Astrid sighed as she wrapped her arms around herself. "Because I'm staying here to protect you, the both of you."

I furrowed my brows as I took a step closer to Astrid, but she just held out her hand. "Astrid, whatever it is, I'm sure we can all tackle this together, as a family!"

Astrid shook her head slowly. "You ... you don't understand. The reason I stayed away all of these years is because I'm protecting you —the both of you— from Dagur."

"Dagur?" I raised a brow, not really understanding what exactly she was trying to protect us from.

"He kept me prisoner on his island for five years before I managed to escape and then I overheard him tell his men that if they ever saw me in the near vicinity of Berk, they were ordered to call upon the armada and launch an attack on the island." Astrid explained to me as she refused to meet my eyes. I glanced over at Zephyr and found her to be focusing at her boots, as if she had heard this story before.

"Astrid, I don't care if Dagur launches an attack on us. I will take him on myself if it means that I can finally have my wife back and be genuinely happy again. Dagur won't ever stand between our happiness again, I won't let him. Just please, Astrid, come home with us." I pleaded with my wife as she seemed to be weighing her options in her mind.

"You're willing to risk everyone and everything we hold dear just so you can have me back?" Astrid asked, as if she didn't believe what she was hearing.

I nodded. "I'd take on a hundred of Dagur's armadas if it meant that you would come back to me, that you would come back to us."

"It's settled then," A grin pulled at Astrid's lips. "We're going to be a family again."

"Yes!" Zephyr cheered as she threw herself into the arms of her mother, who seemed delighted to get to hug her only daughter again. I joined in on the hug by wrapping my arms around the two women I loved the most in this world before Toothless decided that he wanted a part in all of this as well and smoothly slid in to the group embrace.

I pressed a kiss to Astrid's temple. "The Haddock family is whole once more."